Journalism

Analysis and Comment (59)

Vqrxjcjj-1371530577
There’s more information than ever before today but less journalists to cover it. Can institutional corruption still be brought to light? Ahmad Hashim

‘Kindred souls’ exposing abuses of power: journalism in the information age

By Charles Lewis, American University

More then ever, we are awash in information. With the advent of the internet, search engines and now more than two billion people wired users globally, information “has become the modern era’s defining…
J9z9sccm-1369190056
While young women are rising through Australian media ranks, the old glass ceiling remains. Woman reporter image from www.shutterstock.com

Women overtake men in the media, but not in pay or power

By Folker Hanusch, University of the Sunshine Coast

Women now outnumber men in the Australian media, but they are typically younger, earn less and have less powerful positions than male colleagues. A new national survey shows women now make up 55.5% of…
G7286hd7-1368661594
While reporters' political biases are always hotly debated, other biases remain – including too few voices from diverse backgrounds. AAP/Alan Porritt

Whose views skew the news? Media chiefs ready to vote out Labor, while reporters lean left

By Folker Hanusch, University of the Sunshine Coast

Most Australian journalists describe themselves as left-wing, yet amongst those who wield the real power in the country’s newsrooms, the Coalition holds a winning lead. But while the media’s political…
N78428wm-1365512910
Fairfax journalist Paddy Manning was sacked after writing an opinion piece critical of company strategy for Crikey. AAP/Julian Smith

Paddy Manning: the Fairfax watchdog eats one of its own

By Alexandra Wake, RMIT University

Sacked Fairfax business writer Paddy Manning appears to have set out on a suicide mission when he wrote for Crikey this week about problems with the plans to merge the BusinessDay sections of The Sydney…
Vh54v8yw-1365376132
Has Julian Assange’s whistleblower website WikiLeaks set a ‘new normal’ for investigative journalism in the mainstream press? EPA/STR

Wikiworld: the future of investigative journalism

By Luke Heemsbergen, University of Melbourne

If you are a crooked corporate mogul, property tycoon or prominent politician, chances are you are sweating a little bit this week. Sure, your millions of secret tax-evading dollars are – for the moment…
Jr7shqty-1365042290
Fairfax’s Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie are two of the five journalists currently involved in legal disputes for not revealing their sources. Image supplied by MEAA

Protecting the journalists' privilege: reporters go to court

By Denis Muller, University of Melbourne

The protection of confidential sources is an ethical and legal minefield for journalists in Australia, despite the introduction over the past two years of so-called journalists’ privilege in several jurisdictions…
Rrv6qnms-1362362348
The Age has gone tabloid, but missed an opportunity to be brave. AAP/Julian Smith

Fairfax shrinks in size, shrinks from hard decisions

By Jill Singer, RMIT University

The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today managed the long-anticipated shrink to a tabloid format without any major loss of dignity. No shrill DIRTY ROTTEN CHEATS headlines or the like (100 drug probes…
87f9p5g2-1362099635
Will reading habits change with paper size? AAP/Fairfax Media

The end of an era for Fairfax: but does size matter?

By Andrea Carson, University of Melbourne

After 159 and 172 years respectively, the broadsheet tradition has ended for the weekday editions of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). Today, both these Fairfax Media mastheads became tabloid-sized…
R2bwzthh-1360467261
Sports journalists don’t always have the resources to break major crime stories. AAP/Joe Castro

Don’t blame sports journalists for missing corruption scandal

By David Lowden, La Trobe University

The cheating scandal that has ostensibly bewildered those in command of Australia’s elite sports could end up being the biggest story involving sport in history. Yet sport journalists, like the officials…
7548t4cq-1360019513
Fairfax journalists Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie will have their time in court again at the highest court in Victoria – The Supreme Court. Flickr/Avlxyz

Journalists McKenzie and Baker go unshielded before demands to reveal sources

By Johan Lidberg, Monash University

Fairfax investigative journalists Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker had a small win in a Melbourne court yesterday. Their barrister told the court that a previous ruling agreeing that the magistrate had…
R6xsb5rs-1353974605
Our digital era has seen the emergence of many reading technologies but students still prefer the printed book. Flickr/Declan Flemming

Printed journalism may be dying, but books still have a future

By John Potts

The cultural transformation brought about by digital convergence and networked communication has been dizzying, and, for many, disorienting. None of the old certainties – political, corporate, economic…
Tyw7y88h-1354491816
Twitter users are using the #auspol hash to pursue allegations against Julia Gillard. Twitter

Sleaze, smear and social media: how citizen journalists drove the AWU story

By Alan Knight, University of Technology, Sydney

Recent opposition attacks on Julia Gillard’s ethics have been underpinned by an unprecedented underground online campaign prosecuted on social media. The questions raised by Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop…
Msdvw7cn-1354243716
Printed journalism may be struggling, but there’s cause for optimism for investigative journalism. Newspaper image, www.shutterstock.com/Claudio Divizia

Investigative reporting thrives amid doom and gloom for broadsheets

By Andrea Carson, University of Melbourne

When print journalists fill Parliament House tonight to learn who among them has won a Walkley award, the list of finalists already tells an untold truth: newspaper investigative journalism is still strong…
477cbpc3-1354058155
Julia Gillard has repeatedly answered questions about her role with the AWU, but it’s not enough for some journalists. AAP/Alan Porritt

AWU ‘scandal’ says more about the media’s ethics than the PM’s

By Janine Little, Deakin University

Every time Prime Minister Julia Gillard repeats statements that she’s “done nothing wrong” in the AWU slush fund scandal story, it seems another journalist joins the fray. No one covering the story has…
X6d7jrgj-1338960837
Academic writing doesn’t have to be old and dusty. Wyoming_Jackrabbit

Seven secrets of stylish academic writing

By Helen Sword, University of Auckland

Imagine that the editor of a widely-read magazine or, say, The Conversation has heard about your academic research and invited you to contribute an article. But you only know how to produce stodgy, impersonal…
Bv9grm29-1338861052
If your morning newspaper disappeared, would you miss it? flickr/NS Newsflash

Will we miss our daily newspaper?

By Martin Hirst, Deakin University

The hares are running on the proposition that the Fairfax Media board is considering a medium-term plan to give up on printed Monday to Friday editions of its main mastheads in favour of a digital-only…
Txfxjgkw-1338425657
Andy Coulson, former News of the World editor and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s former Director of Communications, leaving the Leveson Inquiry. EPA/Karel Prinsloo

The Leveson Inquiry: what have we learned?

By George Brock, City University London

Andy Coulson, Former News of the World editor and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s previous Director of Communications, was arrested and charged with perjury last night in relation to evidence he…
My7wj6wx-1337064777
Penny Wong’s rare moment of sincerity on Q&A betrayed the paucity of Australia’s political commentary. ABC

Penny Wong, Joe Hockey and the dire state of political punditry

By Dennis Altman, La Trobe University

If there is a turning point in the Australian debate on same-sex marriage it may well be Penny Wong’s remarkable grace and honesty when answering Joe Hockey on last night’s Q&A. Wong was asked by…
7w4zr6bk-1335765793
Journals can make it easier for reporters to do a good job by providing balanced information and accurate media releases designed to inform. NS Newsflash/Flickr

‘Bad’ medical reporting – a history of shooting the messenger?

By Amanda Wilson, University of Newcastle

Journalists are having an increasingly hard time producing high-quality health stories. Medical journal articles feature in many health stories but new research shows their press releases may contribute…
Wmnk97mj-1335915759
James and Rupert Murdoch appearing before the Westminster parliamentary committee that has subsequently attacked their fitness as media proprietors. EPA/Press Association

Rupert Murdoch: the amazing transformation of the Wizard of Oz

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

Will the damning, and somewhat surprising, verdict brought in on Rupert Murdoch by a committee of British parliamentarians, spell the end of the reign of the Wizard of Oz? The answer depends on what is…
Trgtr5rm-1334725933
Should Breivik’s hateful diatribe be made public? AAP/Hakon Mosvold Larsen

Terror on trial: should Anders Breivik’s views be heard?

By Alexandra Wake, RMIT University

The trial of Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik for the murder of 77 people has a special significance for journalists in Australia, and not just because Breivik summoned the names of John Howard, Peter…
Tbtwpmmb-1333427382
Mark Scott, managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. AAP/Alan Porritt

Mark Scott on the future of your ABC

By Rod Tiffen

Welcome to In Conversation, our series of discussions between leading academics and major public figures in Australian life. In this instalment, Mark Scott, managing director of the Australian Broadcasting…
Wnm4vkg7-1333187551
Newsrooms are changing, and so is the business model that underpins them. Flickr/Caroline Treadway

Charity case: can philanthropic journalism last?

By Bill Birnbauer, Monash University

Despite rapid growth in the number of non-profit investigative centres in the United States and many fine examples of quality journalism by such centres, uncertainty remains over the longer-term sustainability…
2xngzjhb-1330217921
Can a Sunday version of top selling weekday tabloid The Sun recapture readers lost when the News of the World was closed? AAP/Facundo Arrizabalaga

The Sunday Sun rises: will the replacement News of the World shine for Murdoch?

By Brian McNair, Queensland University of Technology

I write on the day that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp launches its Sunday Sun in the UK, to widespread astonishment at the man’s “chutzpah” and apparent lack of remorse for the ethical breaches which brought…
Pvgfrv9c-1329348536
The Sun is facing a crisis of its own as revelations of police bribery emerge. EPA

Scandal and schadenfreude in London as The Sun self-destructs

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

It is difficult not to supress a satisfying shiver of schadenfreude as one watches the saga of the self-immolating Murdoch Empire play itself out. The latest episode – breath-taking in its sheer chutzpah…
8fxkjhg4-1329354461
Murdoch and Rinehart could soon own almost all the significant newspapers in Australia. EPA/Michael Reynolds/AAP/Tony McDonough

Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch: a study of power in the media

By David McKnight

Australia’s wealthiest person, Gina Rinehart has bought shares in Fairfax Media. Should we be worried if she buys a controlling interest in the company that publishes the Age, Sydney Morning Herald and…
9qvx334g-1328756422
There’s no turning the tide when it comes to Twitter. Rosaura Ochoa

King Canute is alive and tweeting … and he works at Sky News

By Axel Bruns, Queensland University of Technology

The release of Sky News UK’s Twitter guidelines for its journalists – or rather, the Guardian’s not entirely disinterested commentary on those guidelines – has caused a bit of a stir across social media…
3262p268-1328160586
It can be hard to sort fact from fiction in the modern media environment. Mike Bailey-Gates

Fighting fact-free journalism: a how-to guide

By Ullrich Ecker, University of Western Australia; John Cook, and Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol

A growing cohort of commentators has bemoaned the descent of contemporary political “debate” into a largely fact-free zone. People used to be entitled to their own opinions, but not their own set of facts…
Pic_-_journalism
When jobs are disappearing, why are we training more journalists? flickr

Can journalism graduates get jobs?

By Diana Bossio, Swinburne University of Technology

It usually begins mid-way through their university career. My office begins to fill with panicked journalism students who have seen the dismal job vacancies in their field and are starting to think their…
Tzs5s4zn-1324345830
Journalist or blogger? It’s a thin line. See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

When does a blogger become a journalist?

By Fiona Martin and Tim Dwyer

Citizen journalists everywhere should be checking the fine print of media shield laws, after a US District Court judge in Oregon ruled that self-styled investigative blogger Crystal Cox was not a journalist…
9cm6kb97-1324008406
The Age could find itself at the centre of a test case for a brand new law. AAP/Elaine To

The Age raid: where do journalists draw the line?

By Martin Hirst, Deakin University

Victoria Police e-crime squad members yesterday raided the offices of The Age newspaper as part of their ongoing investigation into allegations that reporters from the paper illegally hacked into an ALP…
Inquiry_men_hirst
Ray Finkelstein and Matthew Ricketson look like they’re leaning towards recommending a single regulatory body for all media platforms. AAP/Dean Lewins

Media Inquiry misses the point, as the news crisis worsens

By Martin Hirst, Deakin University

It seems that despite their sometimes bitter commercial rivalry, the Fairfax and News Limited empires agree on one thing: the Finkelstein Media Inquiry has been a giant waste of time and money. Both have…
Flickr_cayusa
Letting readers comment can direct journalism and make accountability a reality. Flickr/Cayusa

Media Inquiry day two: Embracing the cacophony

By Fiona Martin

On day two of the Media Inquiry, unconstrained online speech figured as a danger to democracy, rather than a new avenue for discussing media ethics and journalistic transparency. Justice Finkelstein opened…
Pic_-_conroy_media_inquiry
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announces the media inquiry in September. AAP/Lucas Coch

Media inquiry day one: Chicken Little takes the floor

By Fiona Martin

As journalists and academics got ready to outline a new media order at the Finkelstein inquiry yesterday, anti-regulationists lined up to dismiss the process with bipartisan relish. On day one of the…
Pic_-_jakubowiscz_bolt
Andrew Bolt has a presence across a variety of media platforms. AAP

Andrew Bolt, racism and the internet

By Andrew Jakubowicz, University of Technology, Sydney

Already the Libertarian Right have begun to marshal their traditional arguments to cover Andrew Bolt’s disgrace by the Federal Court. Bolt himself has screeched freedom of speech in the wake of his ascerbic…
Pic_-_bolt
Andrew Bolt outside court in Melbourne during an earlier appearance in the case decided today. AAP

Bolt loses in court but will public condemnation follow?

By Bridget Griffen-Foley

Columnist and commentator Andrew Bolt has lost his racial discrimination case in the Federal Court. The action under the Racial Discrimination Act had been brought by nine Aboriginal people including…
Ownership_pics_for_pusey
The Murdoch crisis in the UK raises many questions about media ownership in Australia. AAP/William West

Media ownership matters: why politicians need to take on proprietors

By Michael Pusey

The Gillard Government’s media inquiry is to disregard the crucial issues of bias and concentration of media ownership, despite Bob Brown’s demands for wider terms of reference. This is, at best, misled…
Newsroom
newsroom. Flickr/victoriapeckham

Can YouTube save investigative journalism?

By Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation

Have we seen the last of the hard-nosed investigative reporters who break news through months of painstaking research and contact-building? The internet has badly hurt the publishing business model that…
Blair_gillard
Tony Blair pulled back the curtain on the relationship between journalists and politicians.. AAP/Julian Smith

The hidden media powers that undermine democracy

By John Keane

MEDIA & DEMOCRACY: On the final day of The Conversation’s series on how the media influences the way our representatives develop policy, John Keane examines how the relationships between politicians…
Pic_-_demetriou_weldon
The AFL may bypass broadcasters altogether and stream games live to fans. AAP

Non-stop AFL: Andrew Demetriou has an app for that

By John Weldon, Victoria University

Interesting to read AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou’s thoughts on the next broadcasting rights deal, given that the league has yet to work out how to divvy up the money from the deal it recently negotiated with…
Pic_-_murdoch_maguire_pic
Rupert Murdoch holding a copy of The Times, a News International paper. AAP

The perils of trying to regulate for ethical behaviour

By David Maguire, Murdoch University

In little more than two weeks, the long simmering issue of illegal phone hacking at News Corporation’s British newspaper News of the World has developed into a cascading crisis, with fatal results for…
Pic_-_glenn_alstcshuler
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News attracts criticism in the US for its perceived bias. AAP

Rupert Murdoch and the state of American journalism

By Glenn Altschuler, Cornell University

The decline and fall of Rupert Murdoch has more twists and turns than a colonoscopy: the closing of the 168-year-old News of the World; the resignation of two of his top executives and four Scotland Yard…
Pic_-_gaber_murdoch_select
Appearing before a parliamentary committee was “my humblest day” according to Rupert Murdoch. AFP PHOTO/PARBUL

Murdochs' defence strategy: ‘Sorry, we had no idea what was going on’

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

So, after a day of drama at Westminster, what have we learnt, other than the fact that Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi packs a mean left hook (future pranksters beware)? For the best part of six hours we…
Pic_-_bill_birnbauer
An ethical journalistic culture cannot be imposed from above but must develop within a news gathering organisation. AAP

Ethical reporting after NotW phone hacking: it isn’t black and white

By Bill Birnbauer, Monash University

The handwritten sign hanging on the bereaved family’s door says: “No media". As a reporter, do you knock? Most journalism students yell back a resounding “No". Okay then, what if the family has a high…
Pic_-_keano_murdoch
Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire is reeling under the phone hacking scandal. AAP

Murdoch, mediacracy and the opportunity for a new transparency

By John Keane

Schadenfreude is the tough-sounding word that wins my vote for describing accurately how millions of people around the world are feeling about Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. For those who were long resigned…
Notw_last_edition-1310286074
The final edition of the News of the World carried a full page apology to its readers. AFP/Ian Nicholson

News of the World scandal reverberates beyond the Murdoch empire

By David McKnight

The dramatic events around the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s London News of the World are unprecedented in a major news media organisation in an advanced industrial country. A newspaper closed…
Pic_-_murdoch_story
Metropolitan Police officers are interviewing senior News International executives as part of their investigation into phone hacking by journalists. AAP photo. AAP

The News of the World closure: trying to make sense of it all

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

Where to begin? The closure of a 160-year-old newspaper, the arrest of the man who until recently was the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, the revelations that the Metropolitan Police, or at…
London_bombing
The phones of victims of the London bombings were allegedly hacked by staff at the News of the World. AFP/Dylan Martine/WPA pool

‘Deplorable and indefensible’: the ethics of the News of the World

By Denis Muller, University of Melbourne

The British newspaper The News of the World is being investigated over allegations of hacking into the phones of relatives of the victims of the bombings in London in July 2005. It’s also thought those…

Research and News (2)

Research Briefs (2)

Some news leaves people knowing less

Fairleigh Dickinson University

Some news sources make us less likely to know what’s going on in the world, according to the latest results from Fairleigh…

Participants (432)